Parents should listen to Lambert

Did you happen to catch Adam Lambert on CBS' "The Early Show" last week?

If you're a parent, I hope you did. And I hope you were listening to what he said.

The "American Idol" runner-up, who caused a scandal of sorts with his recent appearance on the American Music Awards, actually had some words of wisdom that apply to everyone who has both children and televisions in their home.

Really.

"I think it's up to the parents to discern what their child's watching on television," Lambert told CBS' Maggie Rodriguez.

Absolutely.

The context, of course, is that the interview came in the wake of Lambert's sexually charged AMA performance. And the reason he was on "The Early Show" was that "Good Morning America" canceled Lambert's appearance after complaints about that performance.

(The show was edited before it aired on tape-delay in the Mountain and Pacific Time Zones.)

Rodriguez confronted him about the AMAs, pressing him about whether he should have censored himself because there were children watching the show. But she was flat-out wrong when she insisted that parents "had no idea they were about to see something like that on network TV."

If parents didn't know, they haven't been paying attention. Prime-time network television is not a haven for families, and a great deal of it is completely inappropriate for children.

And both Rodriguez's question and the outrage in some quarters over Lambert's performance are disingenuous at best. The American Music Awards were clearly inappropriate for children long before Lambert performed near the end of the program.

"Just to play devil's advocate with you — Lady Gaga smashing whiskey bottles, Janet Jackson grabbing a male dancer's crotch, Eminem talked about how Slim Shady has 17 rapes under his belt. There's a lot of very adult material on the AMAs this year, and I know I wasn't the only one," Lambert said. "I'm not using that as an excuse, and I didn't take any offense with those performers' choices.

"I'm saying I think it's up to the parent to watch the television. It was almost 11 at night (EST). If they're concerned with certain material, maybe TiVo it and preview it before your small child is watching it."